(first posted 6/16/2016) It was a real “Whoa! What’s that?” moment when I spotted this ’74 Mustang II on a Sunday afternoon, six years ago. I was on my way to play some Euchre (a popular card game in the Midwest) with friends. I’m not exactly sure why, but the first year of Mustang II holds some genuine intrigue for me, being as it was the purest form of Papa Lido’s “Little Jewel” that was introduced in September of ’73.
After snapping a few pictures but also needing a quick bite, I ducked into the local Subway sandwich shop for a toasted roast beef on wheat. There was another customer in line in front of me who appeared to be in his early- to mid-twenties. While I was waiting in line, I kept glancing through the windows across the street at the first street-parked, non-show car Mustang II I had seen in probably twenty years or more.
Having seen me snapping pictures out there, the restaurant’s proprietor, Mr. S., asked about my interest in the car. I explained I was something of a car fanatic, and that I couldn’t remember when I had last seen a Mustang II like this on the street in such great condition. I also mentioned I was hoping to get a few more frames of this car before it and its owner disappeared (as in, Please hurry with my sammy!). Part of me had hoped it belonged to Mr. S., so I could get some back story, but he didn’t bite, so I left it alone.
Overhearing our conversation, the customer in front of me exclaimed, “That’s a Mustang??” Mr. S. went back to making our sandwiches, as I managed to rattle off a few, basic facts about this generation, including the ’74 model’s unique, deeper front grille and the lack of the V8 option. The guy in front of me just shook his head incredulously. This was a “Dang, I’m old” moment, for sure.
If I had correctly guessed the other customer’s age, he would have been born in the mid-80’s, at which time our featured car would have been about at least ten years old. It’s true that most of the second-generation cars had probably disappeared long before he would have easily recognized these as Mustangs, with Fox-body ponies still positively everywhere by the time he would have graduated high school shortly after the turn of the New Millennium. It does actually make sense to me how the original Mustang styling cues, in their melted, ’70s guise of our featured car, would not shout “Mustang” as strongly to a Millennial as the lean, angular, athletic lines of Jack Telnack’s third-generation model.
I was seriously lost as to when I had last seen a Mustang II (any Mustang II) that wasn’t at a show, before I remembered having seen a bumper-less, brown notchback parked not far from Eppley International Airport in Omaha, just a couple of months ago. Before that, though?
I can think of only two such cars, going back to the early 90’s when I was in high school. My friend, Michelle, had purchased a peach-colored Ghia notchback with a tan vinyl roof. It had the Cologne 2.8 V6 / three-speed auto combo, so it wasn’t the quickest thing, but it had been advertised by the used car dealership as a “southern car”. It still ended up rusting badly in short order after just two Michigan winters.
My high school best bud, Fred, had bought a non-running, black ’78 King Cobra with T-tops that sat in his parents’ garage for a year and a half before they made him get rid of it. His dreams of dropping a modern 5.0 into it came to naught, though he had managed to change the brakes as his only project before the tow truck came.
Shifting back to our featured car, I did manage to get a few more pictures of what I considered to be some of this ’74’s more memorable features: its deeper grille and the standard wheel cover discs (all of which were present and accounted for). I far prefer the hatchback’s sloping, fastback profile to the notch’s stubby trunk, though I don’t find our white car unattractive.
Hopefully, the past six years have been good to this little, Shetland pony. Many folks dog these cars now, but as has been said many times before, Ford sold plenty of these and thus kept the “Mustang” name alive. Let us never forget this, though it is as true of the Ford Mustang as it was said on print ads for Virginia Slims cigarettes from the same era as our featured car: Mustang, you’ve come a long way, Baby.
Wrigleyville, Chicago, Illinois.
Sunday, April 18, 2010.
Related reading from:
- Ed Stembridge: Curbside Classic: A Tale of II Mustangs – What A Difference Five Years Makes
- Dave Skinner: Curbside Classic: 1974 Mustang Mach 1 – The Soul Survivor.
- Paul Niedermeyer CC 1976 Mustang II Cobra II – Ford’s Deadly Sin II
- Paul Niedermeyer: What If: CC Builds A Better Mustang II
I’m just not a fan of the Mustang II, try as hard as I can. Problem is, I remember them too well and they were a normal part of my early driving years.
They looked cute. They looked upscale. They were better than most of the competition. But the quality and the engineering of these cars were pretty bad. That cute car fit a lady’s frame well – but not a guy over 6′. I had a college girlfriend with one that I drove and my cousin twin had a red one I rode everywhere around South Chicagoland in. Its Pinto roots just couldn’t be fixed and always a disappointment. Sorry, but the Mustang II was a glorified Pinto.
Its biggest competition volume-wise was the Chevy Monza. The Mustang II was better. Whatever shortcomings the II had over the Monza, it made up for in Mustang panache. GM played it safe by keeping and gelding the Camaro during this time instead of naming the Monza the Camaro II. This ended up being a very good move on GM’s part when Burt Reynolds resurrected the Firebird/Camaro. Let’s not talk about the quality of those cars either, because I know them too well as my mother LOVED her Camaros. Sheesh.
I would be rather hard-pressed to name a 70s Ford I would have wanted before 1976. During this time we were a Ford family and a Ford was the last thing I would have wanted new. I, and my brothers, were all tooling around in a different Valiant during these years and we liked cars that weren’t all looks, soft poor handling, and stuffed with fake wood trim.
The MII gets a lot of vitriol but the truth is, it wasn’t so bad (at least for the time). The problem is the comparison with the muscle Mustangs that went before, and that’s really not fair. Ford simply switched the demographic focus when the performance car market fell off a cliff.
Someone earlier mentioned how the MII hatchback looked a little too close to a Pinto. The MII that’s really a better example is the notchback coupe, particularly when a loaded-up Ghia to make it something of a mini-Thunderbird. One of those with a 302, while not a hotrod, would have been adequate and stylish enough for, say, young, single (or young and single at heart) women, a market that was always a target for the more sedate (yet still sporty) Mustang versions.
In short, machismo found a home with the f-body, helped in a big way by guys like Burt Reynolds and James Garner. Mustang II buyers tended more to dream they were Jaclyn Smith or Farrah Fawcett. For this latter group, the Mustang II was just fine.
Honestly, I think the most troublesome comparison for the Mustang II was the Capri. The Capri was obviously the same kind of thing and had some of the same powertrain options, but it was tidier, handled better, and seemed less compromised.
Funny, I always considered the Mustang II to be a glorified Pinto also!
It was a glorified Pinto, though as is often pointed out, no more so than the earlier Mustangs were glorified Falcons or later ones glorified Fairmonts. I think the Falcon and Fairmont-derived ‘Stangs go down better because at least those were larger platforms that comfortably carried V8s, and don’t draw the mockery the Pinto often does. Conceptually, the MII couldn’t be more on target, with many buyers looking for a hint of luxury and style but wanting a small, fuel-efficient car, and strong sales proved that. It should have been better, but it was good enough. The Mustang II was the opposite of the Mopar E bodies (Challenger/Barracuda), which are vaunted today but sold terribly during their lifetime (which overlapped the Mustang II’s) and were simply wrong for their time. They may have sold well a few years earlier.
I’ve got not just eye time, but seat time in those. My Dad and his second wife had one for a time ~’80 when I made a visit back to see them. Might have been her car, bought new, vinyl roof, auto, Cruise Control and a dog. Pinged at anything over half throttle, I tweaked the timing back a little bit and then it was full sulfur.
A few years later when I met my wife to be she had a M II, fastback. 4 speed, red, horrid job of shadowlining by her ex. Horribly overgeared and consequently slow, didn’t handle too bad and with the missing black on the trim painted over and a fresh wax job, actually looked pretty good. I felt it could have been a full mediocre with just a bit of work from the factory, if they’d cared.
In retrospect, it was probably the right car for the time, the original Mustang had grown so much something needed to be done, and it was. But it was just a collection of parts, not a full car.
I can’t say anything positive about these cars. Not after spending the time I did in Mustang II’s in the ’75 to ’77 period. Three of them, to be exact. All three were owned by the girlfriends and later on, wives of friends of mine. I don’t remember why anymore, but my one friend Bill, who recently passed away, was driving his soon to be wife’s blue MII hatchback for a fairy long period of time, like a couple of months. He just hated it, too small for his and my gorilla like build, too gutless, and there was the whole “Chickmobile” thing, as it was definitely considered one. His little brother had a ridiculously modified Pinto with a big block V8 stuffed into it, and for whatever reason, we hated it less. We still didn’t like it, but we didn’t dread riding in it, mostly because it was scary fast. It being so nose heavy meant it didn’t stop all that well, but hey, a lot of cars didn’t back then.
The other two MII’s were tan and black, both higher priced ones, and I rode in the tan one from Vegas to Phoenix once. Just the one way, I was in a ’77 GMC pickup going back. So much more comfortable! The black one got hit and totalled by a drunk at the infamous Vegas “drunk driver alley”, AKA the area around the intersection of Las Vegas Blvd and Oakey streets. No real injuries to my friend’s fiancee, but the car was trash. I was kind of shocked to see what replaced it, a ’78 Trans Am, a blue one without T-Tops. It didn’t take long after the 12,000 mile warranty expired for it to be hopped up and it was probably what made me replace my totally POS ’77 Power Wagon with a T/A.
I just can’t with these. They’re hideously ungainly from any and every angle. Bad drugs going round the Ford styling studios in the ’70s, as it seems. Too many random lines and curves and melted-bar-of-soap shapes (quarter glass, ugh; grill, double ugh) all mashed together unfittingly. The proportion—long front fenders and hood and stubby short quarter panels and trunk—worked well on the original Mustang, and on the early Toyota Celica, but not on this car.
(Also, slapping a “II” on a car like this has always struck me as lame and lazy)
Aside from all that, I like ’em just fine.
Henry Ford II was into the Roman Numerals. And Lee I. But glad the Fox Mustang was not a “III”, as it was planned!
Anyway, so many forget that not all 60’s Mustangs were High Performance muscle cars with 390/427/428 motors. The intro Spring ’64 season, no fastbacks and I6 or 260 v8. Meant to be a stylish car, not all “drag racers”.
So, the II was a hark back to the ‘small stylish compact’. In response to some stockholders asking to bring back the ’65 around time the ’71 came out.
Brother had a “74” , lift back version.The 4 cylinder was thrift but provided no actual power. (just propulsion)
Was “ok” in winter though; not enough “rev” to get the wheels spinning.